EEG correlates of visual recognition while overtly tracking a moving object

Abstract

Although our natural visual environment is dynamic, to date EEG studies on visual cognition are mainly based on the fixed-gaze visual paradigms or static images as stimuli. On the other side, scenes’ dynamic significantly influence our visual behavior, i.e., the occurrence of saccadic movements, smooth pursuit and fixations. Since smooth-pursuit eye-movements do not occur in a static scene, in this study we address the EEG-based intention decoding in presence of smooth-pursuit eye movements at slow speed (∼ 2.8˚/s) using the state-of-the-art EEG decoding methods. Our results suggest that the decoding performance remain high (with reference to the fixed-gaze paradigm) even when subjects are additionally engaged in tracking a moving object. In contrast to the pursuit movements, the uncertainty of the change perception remains one of the major challenges for the EEG decoding as we additionally demonstrated in this study.